


Walking through Infinity

by fannishliss



Series: Kink List [28]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky may be dead but he's not giving up, Emotion Play, Kinktober 2018, M/M, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), all Bucky cares about is Steve, my kink list
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-08-02 08:43:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16301879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fannishliss/pseuds/fannishliss
Summary: In the soul realm, Bucky runs the gamut of emotions: grief, rage, panic, despair, determination, and above all, devotion.





	Walking through Infinity

**Author's Note:**

> This is for my kink list, for Kinktober, trying to break my block that hit because I didn't like the thought of emotion play. 
> 
> Any way, this was what I came up with! It's not that Bucky's swirl of powerful emotions is all that erotic -- but it is driven by his love for Steve to a big extent.

 

Thanos snaps his fingers and reality seems to dim.There’s a strange, dead feeling creeping all through his body, and he takes a step toward Steve — Steve’s face is full of horror— 

 

and then everything is gone. 

 

Emptiness.Nothing. 

 

Slowly, the darkness lightens to gray. Bucky has seen nights this dark, gray like this heralds the coming of dawn.But everything is silent.Nothing to hear— nothing moving — no wind. 

 

The grayness brightens to dimness, just a vague light.There’s nothing to see. Bucky looks, tries to peer into the void, to see something, anything, just to get his bearings.Nothing. 

 

Looking, okay, it means he’s alive.He can look.He can turn, left, right.He is standing.Was he always standing? He can’t be sure.Now, he is standing, looking.Slowly he turns in a full rotation.What is he standing on? It’s something very strange.It’s not like ground or a floor, not solid, but not soft either.It’s like, he is standing, so therefore, there’s something to stand on.A substrate.Nothing more definite.Bucky turns and looks all around.Is the light brighter in any direction? Is there any hint of a form one place or another? Not that he can tell.Should he try to walk? 

 

Bucky realizes he’s naked.He hadn’t thought about it till now.He’s not cold or warm, he’s just — neutral.He can’t feel moisture or any kind of draft. 

 

Suddenly he needs to make a sound — he screams — his whole body is full of the scream — he roars it out.Something is dreadfully wrong.The scream doesn’t leave his body — he can hear it — but it’s like it’s trapped inside him.Bucky screams and screams and screams and screams, the roars echoing inside him like the roar of blood in his ears —— 

 

He suddenly stops — as suddenly as he started.The scream is gone — no echoes.He presses his fingers to his neck, suddenly terrified what he will find, or not find. 

 

He thinks he can feel his pulse.He’s not sure? He tries again.There! Or, is it?

 

Bucky tries to find his pulse, but he can’t be sure if he fails or succeeds.He can almost feel it, he thinks he can feel it, a fast, angry thumping — but it’s like his fingers are wrapped in wool.They just can’t be sure. He gives up, takes a breath and sighs. 

 

Does he though? Was that a real breath? Like the scream, the sound seems to be too much inside his own head.Like the heartbeat, the feeling is muffled and elusive. Did he take a breath and sigh it out? He tries again, and still, he can’t be sure. 

 

This way leads to madness, Bucky thinks.Maybe he’s already crazy. Maybe Thanos gained the power to drive the world mad, like the Titan himself. 

 

But Bucky doesn’t feel insane.He just feels — 

 

In fact, he feels a hell of a lot!He’s furious, now, that Thanos could do this so easily — terrified that Steve is somewhere like this, without him — 

 

Keening fear pours into him, fear that Steve will suffer and he won’t be there to prevent it. 

 

Wails pour out of him — sucked dry by the dim gray void — or at least, as far as the boundary of his mind. 

 

The wailing dies back after a while.Bucky has no way to measure time — no change in the gray dim light of the void — no heartbeat, no breath, his autonomic clock unwound. 

 

What kind of torture is this? Is it on purpose? Did Thanos do this to Bucky, to break him? 

 

Bucky grinds his teeth, even though his jaws feel numb.Breaking Bucky is harder than you might think — more relentless bastards have tried, and ultimately, they’ve failed.Sure, for a time you might override someone’s will or eradicate their memories — but Bucky has always rebounded, regained himself after they’ve tried their worst. 

 

Bucky spits, a little curse on Hydra, on Thanos, on any of the assholes who think they deserve to direct the fate of everyone around them. 

 

Did he spit? He can’t tell.Nothing landed.The ground or whatever is very strange.He tries to take a step — he consciously lifts his foot and strides forward.Nothing whatsoever changes.There’s only the vaguest sensation of moving his leg — no weight or feeling of contact with the ground. 

 

How does he know he’s standing? Where does the sense of verticality come from? 

 

Merely the knowledge that he can turn his head, move his arms, lift his feet.Nothing else indicates that he’s even standing. 

 

God, what if Stevie is somewhere like this? 

 

What if they’re imprisoned, right next to each other? 

 

Steve!Bucky shouts.Steve! Steve! Steve! Steve! 

 

He shouts and shouts.His throat never runs dry.He doesn’t feel hoarse, he feels nothing.The shouts don’t seem to make it far outside his ears. 

 

Despair washes over him. How long has he been here? What does he have to show for himself? Is this all he’ll ever be, or become? Is this his ultimate fate? How horrible!Is this hell, at last?Where are the demons? Where are the accusing souls of his victims? Where are the suffering Hydra sinners, punished and tormented for their wrong doing?

 

Nothing, nothing.Grayness and silence. 

 

Okay.This isn’t hell.Maybe he is being punished — he’s certainly not being rewarded — there’s no sense of being any nearer to God or whatever than he ever felt back on earth.Besides, it was Stevie who ever felt the presence of God, Stevie who knew how to pray.Bucky would try saying prayers, but they felt hollow, rehearsals of meaningless lines. 

 

Bucky thought of that now.Thanos, the Titan, had gathered together some gems, and fused them onto a gauntlet, and then he could just snap his fingers and terrible things happened. How could Steve ever face down something like that? Steve had a strong power of rationalization.One of Steve’s friends was an actual Norse god who could summon lightning and had a magic hammer, but Steve thought of Thor as a person, not as a god. Steve also knew an artificial intelligence, who was patently created by Tony Stark. The Vision too, was an artificial man— brought to life, maybe, by one of those gemstones, supposedly fragments leftover from creation.Steve didn’t try to deny that the Vision was real.He didn’t draw lines between humans and people like Vision — or even like Jarvis.

 

As for Bucky, he had no metaphysical hangups. Bucky could see the long progression of consciousness up from the microbes.How could you say a human being was conscious, but a dog or a cat was not, just because they didn’t speak English? Dogs had lives, they roamed at will, they cared for their puppies and loved their human friends.Dogs could play, and sleep, and dream, and snarl, and bite, and lick, and even dance for joy.Dogs, in Bucky’s mind, were no less people than humans.So it would be stupid to think that Jarvis wasn’t a person, or Vision.But how far down did consciousness go? What about a cockroach, going about its scavenging?What about a worm that turned away from light? Bucky wasn’t sure.He couldn’t see how a jellyfish or a paramecium was a person.But even the tiniest rodent stored up food, built burrows, guarded their offspring.Species-ist prejudice made Bucky think that warm blood might make a good person — though fish were cold blooded, and some fish were very smart… 

 

How long had Bucky been standing there, thinking about personhood? 

 

What did it matter? 

 

What did any of it matter?

 

Bucky was dead, wasn’t he? 

 

This was the end.There was no going forward. 

 

That was a very bleak chain of thought. Bucky got stuck there for quite a long time, at least it seemed that way. 

 

Slowly, Bucky came to a decision.Even if it didn’t seem to matter, even if he couldn’t really tell if he were moving — he could make an effort, an effort of will.He would move his feet as well as he could and try to walk.He would make the effort to walk forward.Nothing tired him out, he didn’t get hungry or short of breath, he might as well try to walk. 

 

So he walked. 

 

Through the endless field of gray he strode, feet passing weightlessly over the nothingness. 

 

Something about the rhythm he set himself, the movement of right and left, calmed his agitated mind.He couldn’t breathe or shout, and maybe he didn’t really have a heartbeat, but he could tell himself to walk, and it felt like some semblance of walking. 

 

Bucky didn’t know how long he had walked, but a thought came into his mind.Bucky thought about infinity. 

 

Math was funny, when you thought about it. 

 

Infinity was, by definition, longer than its limits. An infinite line could be drawn between two points and the ends just kept on going, forever. But that kind of forever was only a mathematical concept.In reality, Bucky thought, the universe was like an ever expanding sphere.If you had a line that went on forever, maybe the ends would have to curl back, and they’d just have to keep on curling back, and back, and back… 

 

Bucky’s feet moved on, through the void, without ever touching whatever passed for ground, and he kept focused on that endless line.An infinite universe, Bucky posited, could be filled up with infinite string.And Bucky would make that string… he would walk, and walk, and eventually, walking through the infinite, he would pass through the place where Steve also was. 

 

And when that happened, he’d latch on to Steve, or walk along inside him, or live inside his ear — whatever worked. 

 

Bucky walked the infinite, raging, crying, laughing, only looking, never blinking, never stopping, eyes wide and feet lifting, ears peeled for Steve. 

 

Walking to get back to Steve. 

 

*

 

Suddenly, Bucky was naked in a room, and Steve was nearly crushing him, crying on his shoulder. 

 

Sam Wilson was complaining in the background, borrowing Steve’s shorts, slamming the door. 

 

Bucky’s arms went out and the way he felt when they landed, solid, onto Steve, was indescribable. 

 

But maybe it felt a little like breathing, like screaming, like a heartbeat, 

 

like the sun finally coming up

 

like a long walk taking forever 

 

finally coming home

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is in continuity with my other post Infinity War story, [the Odor of Roses](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16296503), but neither story depends on the other to be understood.


End file.
